We Avoided EU Budget Default Says Giovanni La Via

“I want to strongly emphasise that today’s approval of the draft amending budget (DAB 6/2013) does not eliminate the need for fresh money to pay the bills already submitted by the Member States, not to mention those coming up in November and December, which will inevitably affect the already tight 2014 budget”, said Giovanni La Via MEP, Rapporteur on the EU Budget 2013, on the sidelines of the vote on DAB 6/2013 today in Strasbourg.

He added: “I remind the Council that it is not about money given or to be given to the EU or to its Institutions, nor to the European Parliament. It is rather a matter of resources going back to Member States, citizens, regions, universities.”

The draft amending budget 6 of 2013 amounts to €2.7 billion and includes a review of the provisions on own resources due to an error in the estimates of revenue from customs duties and VAT.

La Via highlighted: “Today’s approval of the DAB 6/2013 is an act of great responsibility of the European Parliament, which reacted promptly, and even changed the agenda of its works, to a European Commission request complaining about a risk of default or shutdown (as it has been defined) of the EU because of the lack of ‘cash’, resulting in the inability to pay bills as from 15 November.”

During the debate this morning, it has been underlined several times that this act of responsibility does not erase the failures of the Council shown during the negotiations on the 2013 payments. It has been stressed that it was known since the approval of the 2013 budget at the end of last year that the level of payments would be insufficient to cover all expenditure requirements and that there would have been the need for fresh resources.

“We insist then on asking the Council to urgently approve DAB 8/2013, namely, €3.9 billion, and we stress that in the case of non-approval, the Parliament, as already mentioned several times, and the last time in its Resolution of 3 July, will not give its consent to the MFF 2014-2020”, concluded Giovanni La Via.

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